Before you draft emails, newsletters, posters and other ways to expound and promote your wellness program, remind yourself of three probable (and unfortunate) realities about your audience and your message: They don't verily want it. They don't verily have time for it. They didn't verily ask for it.
With that in mind, informing employees about the advantages of participating in your wellness program might be your traditional communication goal, but it shouldn't be your initial one. The traditional mission is to capture employees' attention in the first place. A good rule of thumb: You can't educate or motivate unless you captivate.
Food Delivery Seattle
Savvy organizations accomplish this by creating wellness communication that is conversational and succinct. They deliver messages with tones and lengths that fly in the face of what other organizations think to be "proper" and "official."
Clarity is Key: If Your Messages Aren't Obvious, They Can't Be Understood
Businesses that want to sound "official" usually end up sounding confusing or egotistical. The intent of their messages is lost in the delivery, usually because the messages have more to do with the sender ("This is what we want, and this what we think") than with the receiver ("Here is what you asked for, and this is how it applies to you").
Today, there's a Grand Canyon-sized gap between what associates want to say and how they pick to say it. One qoute is most workplace communicators neglect to think the importance of "voice" - the tone of their communication, as thought about by their audience. Another hypothesize is workplace communicators eschew clarity - the main ingredient of productive communication - because, well, they use words like "eschew" instead of "avoid."
The growing disconnect between what employers write or say and what employees read or hear has fueled the "plain language" movement in any industries, together with condition care. The qoute in the curative field is understandable: very educated doctors often aim to sound very educated, and their vocabulary - much like the journals and books they read - are technical. A similar issue often affects company Ceos and presidents, who aim to sound business-like.
But if your wellness messages aren't obvious, they won't be understood or acted upon. In fact, they might not even be read or heard. This is especially true when a topic is viewed by employees as important but intricate (improving total wellness, learning how to make rehearsal and salutary eating habitual, etc.).
As a workplace communicator, you might have the task of reaching a large range of workers, together with people who struggle to read, and those who can read but either don't take the time or naturally tune out condition information. It's an important challenge. In fact, the National outpatient security Foundation says the biggest barriers to being salutary are not age, income, education level, race, or ethnicity. Rather, studies indicate that the strongest predictor of a person's condition status is his or her potential to understand and use condition information.
"We can't keep focusing on our information instead of our readers," says Audrey Riffenburgh, founder and president of consultancy Plain Language Works, Llc. "Clear communication is about focusing on what your readers need to know and then delivering that by manufacture sure messages are relevant and understandable. Putting that communication in plain language doesn't mean you're 'dumbing down' messages. It naturally means you understand the importance of having employees receive them."
Need to Get Clear? Avoid These tasteless Problems
1. Getting technical and clinical. Some organizations try to show off their brain by distributing long articles or emails filled with jargon. Keep your messages straightforward and understandable.
2. Exterior too much. Say it quick, and make it stick. Listen to seasoned radio sources (politicians, book authors, activists, etc.) and notice how many of them are great at getting their points across in "sound bites." decree on your main thought and focus on getting that message across. Then stop. Hereafter messages should discuss connected concepts.
3. Failing to highlight important copy. Cut the gist of your message down to an "elevator speech" you can narrate in a sentence or two. Make those words the first ones readers see. Don't "bury" the point.
4. Creating "brick walls" of text. Don't make readers scroll down any screens to read an email, and don't pass out an important internal brochure that lacks illustrations, charts, or tables. contain subheads, sidebars, pull quotes, boxes, and the like whenever possible, especially when presenting an idea that can be best understood visually on first glance.
5. Lecturing. Supply take-away value. Remember, your audience is going to think, "So what?"
Less is More: Does Your Wellness communication Pass the Scan Test?
The midpoint attention span of Americans today is roughly the time it has taken you to read this sentence. "You only have a tiny to gain their attention" is an incorrect maxim. You verily have about 2.7 seconds.
And then you have to keep their interest so they can act upon your communication? That's not easy, to say the least. You're trying to reach employees at the same time they're updating a file while also instant messaging with a co-worker while also straightening up their desk while also listening to a consulation call.
How can you get employees to view - let alone read - your wellness communication?
"If a worker views something for a few seconds, he or she should be able to narrate at least the gist of what you're saying," says Alison Davis, Ceo of worker communications firm Davis & Company, and coauthor of the book Your Attention, Please: How to petition to Today's Distracted, Disengaged and Busy Audiences. "If that can't be done, your communication program is going to suffer a quick death."
Many employees turn a deaf ear to anyone spellbinding topics they don't understand fully. So when they see an email about important changes to the company's wellness plan, for example, their tendency is to delay reading it until they verily must.
"It's such an unkind reality - yet such a vital realization - to understand that most employees need to be told why they should care," says Sharon Long Baerny, vital of Seattle-based communications agency We Know Words. "Whatever you're communicating, it's much more important to you than it is to your recipients. To make your messages more effective, you must begin to think more like them."
The key is brevity. So, think of teasers and billboards. Make your messages easy and scannable. Cut your articles to a incorporate hundred words. Get your videos down to one minute, max. Stick to the main concept.
If you do, your emails, newsletters, and posters will come with credibility, not just copy. Employees might even start finding send to receiving it. They'll perceive something you already know: Your organization's wellness communication is well worth their time.
Need to Get Concise? Try These Tips
Truth is, people don't read. They scan. We are a populace versed in instant gratification.
Relish the role of manufacture your wellness communication simple, not just essential. Here are four tips:
1. Use short sentences. Keep in mind how you would tell people if you were talking to them. Instead of... Joe utilized numerous strategies to accomplish his goals of increasing his daily operation and decreasing his consumption of unhealthy foods. Try... Joe had two goals: adding operation to his day and eating less junk food. He tackled his goals in many ways.
2. Be clear and inspirational. You want to encourage salutary behavior. Be a cheerleader, not a scolder.
Instead of... Smoking is bad for you. You should give up this unhealthy habit before it's too late! Try... Giving up smoking can help you to feel best and live longer. Why not give it a try? Here are some straightforward ideas that may work for you.
3. Use bulleted lists when together with steps or tips. Organizing information into bulleted lists makes it easier to read and process. Instead of... During our next monthly meeting, we will be discussing changes to our program, in increasing to new incentives and an modernize to our points system.
Try... During our next monthly meeting, we will be talking about: Changes to our program. New incentives. modernize to our points system.
4. contain actions to take or where to go for more information. Don't leave readers hanging. If you're together with a story, decree what you want your readers to do with the information. If you want them to sign up for a new weight-management program, tell them so and Supply them with a link, e-mail, or location of where to sign up. You may also want to contain a few steps they could take on their own to get started on managing their weight - a sneak peek of what to expect with the program.
5 Wellness communication Assumptions to Avoid
1. Assuming you can get employees to act on your messages without telling them why and without request them to act.
2. Assuming employees will read, instead of naturally scanning, your content.
3. Assuming it's not worthwhile to encourage employees to make seemingly minor healthcare changes and choices.
4. Assuming professional-sounding language is best than straightforward "plain speak" in your wellness communication.
5. Assuming all employees digest and hold communication in the same manner and prefer the same medium.
In Wellness Communication, Clarity Is Key and Less Is MoreMichael Michalak "Shifting Trade Winds Remarks and Q & A" Tube. Duration : 57.60 Mins.Portland Community College hosted this lecture as part of the symposium "Shifting Trade Winds: APEC, Globalization & The Pacific Northwest" in Portland, Oregon in September 2011. Michael W. Michalak is a former US Ambassador to Vietnam and Senior Advisor to the APEC 2011 USA Host Committee. In 2011, the United States hosted the leaders of some of the world's largest economies for the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit. In anticipation of this major event, Portland Community College welcomed the public, our local business community, and college and university faculty to a symposium to discuss trade and cultural issues in the Asia-Pacific region. www.pcc.edu
Keywords: Portland Community College
